In this section I'm going to give you some information on game mechanics as well as some tips that might aid you in your space travels.

First we will start on the information given on the top left corner of your screen when you start
playing:
Green Color: Shows the name of your ship.

Pink Color: Shows your number of lives left (in this case is 5).

Yellow Color: Shows your score. This is important if you want to beat the God Tier achievement.

Red Color: Shows the Multiplier you currently have. What does the multiplier do? Well it multiplies the score you gain when destroying a ship. Let's say that you destroy a ship that usually gives you 100 points. By having a multiplier of 2 you will now gain 200 points. You will always start a level with a multiplier of 1 and it can go to a maximum of 10 of that current level (the multiplier resets on the next level). How do you increase your multiplier? Let's go to the last color description.

Brown Color: Shows your "multiplier battery". Everytime you destroy a ship you charge up your battery with one bar.
When the battery is fully charged every enemy on screen will be disabled (like in the photo) and you will gain an additional multiplier. When your enemy is disabled (just like when you abandon a ship with no ammo) they will get destroyed after a period of time. DON'T LET THAT HAPPEN! Quickly crash your ship into all the disabled enemies because you will not lose life (nor loose ammo) and your battery will charge up as if it was a "normal" enemy ship.


But there's a catch on all this...

If you get hit your multiplier goes down one level automatically, so it's very difficult to reach a multiplier of 10, you basically have to dodge almost every ship's attacks of a level to get it but it's a must have to beat the God Tier achievement. Also, if you lose a live your multiplier resets automatically.

Lastly...

... I'm going to give just a few tips about the ships you can choose in this game:
(Note: The same ship has two different names depending on the faction you are currently align to: Humans or Aratus. I'm using the human names on this guide.)

The Vic can be more useful in certain situations than an Heavy Railgun Carrier as it is smaller and faster. You can easily dodge your enemies's attacks with it.


Another ship that I really like. Although the Prawn isn't as fast as the Vic, it's more sturdy and the shots it fires are arguably better.



Make use of the Drill's incredible ability to charge at foes (destroying them almost instantaneously) while at the same time being invulnerable to any kind of damage. This baby saved me more times of deadly situations that I can count.


The Trident is just wonderful if you want to get rid of multiple enemies very fast. It's my first choice for instance when facing the boss from level 1.













Just like the Drill, the Sail's attack gives it invulnerability to any kind of damage and destroys everything it touches in a 360 degree area. It's one of the best ships without a doubt. "The best offense is a good defense" as they say.

Alpha (Level 1)

I urge you to take control of one of the Tridents in the end of the fifth wave before facing this boss because this ship fires 3 shots at a time. It is a really neat attribute when facing many enemies at the same time because you will destroy multiple ships at an incredibly speed. It's still difficult not to take any damage so just be very aggressive, killing as much enemies as you can right at the beginning of the fight (the more ships you destroy at the beginning the more easier is to dodge any damage later on).


Hydra (Level 2)

Similar strategy for Ouroboros (Level 6) fight. Please scroll down for more info.


Death Lotus (Level 3)

Using the Drill in this fight makes everything easy.


Goliath (Level 4)

It took me a looooong time to figure out how to get this achievement and this is why:
I beat this guy under 30 seconds many times but the achievement wouldn't pop up no matter what. I thought the achievement was broken and I was finally starting giving up on this until it hits me! When you destroy Goliath if you look closely you will see that there is a time gap between his death and when you get the message saying for example 100000 points (the one in blue that also shows the time bonus). What matters to get this achievement is the time that message appears and not the actual death of Goliath! So you need to buy a little extra time for that message to appear. If that message appears under 30 seconds you will get the achievement.
Another thing: Although I've read that there are people getting this achievement in boss rush mode I can tell you that for me it didn't work. I could only get this achievement playing in level 4.


Strategy: As soon as the battle starts quickly take control of the ship on the top while destroying the other two like in the video. Aim for the yellow light and as soon as you see him turning towards you quickly take control of another ship, preferably a more far away ship that still can aim at him. Good luck!


Gamma Squad&Morning Star (Level 5)

Try to take out right away one of the squadrons and the rest is just to fire fast and take control of another ship even faster to avoid as much damage as possible. Also, one great tip is to take over the Puffer ship since it can fire a total of 8 shots at a time (similar strategy of the first Boss) or the Drill for the invulnerability trait.






Puffer






Ouroboros (Level 6)

Quickly take control over one of the segments and fire as fast as you can because as soon as you're out of ammo it is one less segment you have to worry about. Try also to make use of the Ouroboros ability of firing from both sides making double damage instead.
Avoid touching the pink trail. Good luck!

Note: Again, I couldn't get the Snake Eater achievement in Boss Rush mode.


Behemoth (Level 7)

Similar strategy for the Goliath (Boss Level 4) fight however the spawning rate of the ships around Behemoth are far greater which is a huge problem since you won't have enough time to hit Behemoth and take over other ships (you will most likely die). To counter this you must take control over Behemoth and quickly take out almost every ship and only then you can take control of the remaining ships and hit him. Good Luck!


Ikiryo (Level 8)

It took me 7 or 8 tries to get the Red Rum achievement because even if you're good at dodging or aiming this battle still requires a lot of luck. The advices I can give you are:

- Try to always have in sight the red light so you will know what ship Ikiryo is currently taking control of;

- Try to take control of the Heavy Railgun Carrier so you can do more damage to him in less time (it has auto fire ability) with the advantage that you will have more “life bars”;

- You can also inflict damage by bumping Colonial Supply Ships against him;

- Another way is also to take control over the Bomber L5 – Wombat (the ship that launches bombs from behind) to deal massive damage;

- If you still have time when the Fusion Power Core - Tesla Coil ships appears, quickly take over one of them and deal the final blow.

Good luck!

Note: Again, I couldn't get the Red Rum achievement in Boss Rush mode.

"Complete Level 1." This is the best level, in my opinion, to beat also the Mr. Dodger’s Neighborhood as well as the Maverick achievements. I made a video that will hopefully help you. For the boss of this level please go to the Boss Guide section.



Notes: I found something strange about the achievement of Mr. Dodger's, as you will see at the end of the video, because I taught the achievement would only pop up after beating the boss of the level but oddly enough it popped up after getting through all the 5 waves unscattered . I don't know if that was a bug or simply because getting this achievement doesn't require beating the level boss. If it was indeed a bug please see the Boss Guide section for more info.
For this achievement you can't also bump/crash into disabled ships (like I said in the Getting Started section).

"Complete Level 2."

"Complete Level 3."

"Complete Level 4."

"Complete Level 5."

"Complete Level 6."

"Complete Level 7."

"Complete Level 8."

Ensign - "Destroy 100 enemies."




Lieutenant - "Destroy 500 enemies."




Veteran - "Destroy 1000 enemies."




Warlord - "Destroy 5000 enemies."




Death Incarnate - "Destroy 100000 enemies."



Note: I have all but one achievement of this bunch and you guessed it right! Death Incarnate is just pure grinding... Even if you beat the game multiple times you still won't get this achievement.

Curiosity: "Death Incarnate is a reference to the hardest difficulty level in the Wolfenstein games." by _N0UD_

"Kill a ship with every shot in the Vic." You can get the Maverick achievement right away at the beginning of the first level by destroying 16 ships with 16 "bullets" with the Vic, meaning that you can't miss one shot and that the ships you aim at can be destroyed with only one shot.

"Beat a level without being hit." See the Empathic Conditioning (Level 1) section for this achievement.

"Honk the horn." You can do this in the first level. You just have to take control of this ship (it's a Colonial Supply Ship) and press the button where you shoot and this baby will beep beep out of ya. Actually, it's the only thing that it does.

"Escape right when your ship explodes." I did this by making a ship with one "life bar" getting hit on purpose. Just before getting hit by an enemy, take control of another ship.

"Leave 10 ships with no ammo in a single wave."
Just waste all your ammo as fast as you can and quickly take control of other ships and do the same before the wave ends.

"Kill 50 enemies as a Scuttler." The first encounter you will have with the Scuttler will be in level 2, wave 3.

"Destroy 50 ships with Heat-Seeking Missles."
You will need the Hornet's Nest ship to be able to get this achievement. They first appear in level 5, wave 7.




Hornet's Nest

"Kill 20 Enemies in a Single Aratus Parasite." This is a little challenging achievement that you will likely get after a few tries. I did this on level 7 at the start of wave 3 and it took me a little bit of practice to position the parasite correctly as to destroy 2 enemies at a time if possible (however the parasite has 24 "bullets" so don't worry if you miss one or two).You don't need to finish the wave with the parasite, after killing 20 enemies you can take control of other ships. The achievement will pop up when the wave ends.

"Destroy Two Enemies While in an Asteroid."




"Take out 5 ships while in an asteroid."



I think the Stone Cold achievement is a little buggy because I've tried to get it on the arcade mode (where it's far easier to do this and also where I've read that most of the people got it.) and it didn't work even though I did everything right so I've tried to get it on the levels of the game and I must say I was a little surprised when I got it as I only crashed on 4 ships while in an asteroid.

Another strange thing was that before getting the achievement there actually was a counter saying 1/5 ships just like the number of enemies destroyed counter for the Death Incarnate achievement but aren't we suppose to destroy all 5 ships in the same asteroid? Why would there be a counter? But it makes sense that I got it since destroying 4 ships plus 1 equals 5 right? Tell me if you're having the same problem or what you think. Meanwhile I got the achievement in level 4, wave 9 as you will see in the video.

"Take over the unknown ship." The fastest way to do this achievement is to take control of this ship on level 4 in the beginning of wave 6 as it is the first encounter you will have with it. They are extremely fast so you must position in the right place before it shows up as you can see in the video.

]

To beat this you have to finish the rest of the game with an UFO. They are very rare, only spawning 2 times in the entire game: one in level 4, wave 6 and another in level 7, wave 8. Of course, the easiest way to do this would be taking control of the UFO from level 7 but you still have to defeat 2 bosses and the fact that one hit kills you makes this achievement the hardest of the game. You even get a special ending for doing this as a reward for such a difficult task.

I think the strategy here is to fully know every wave, every enemy patterns, every asteroid position and make use of the UFO special ability (if you try to leave the screen from the bottom you will be teleported to the top and same goes to the front and back of the screen).

Thanks to @Catalyst we now have a video recording on how to get this achievement:

"Destroy Goliath in under 30 seconds." See the Boss Guide section for this achievement.

"Defeat Ouroboros under 30 seconds." See the Boss Guide section for this achievement.

"Destroy Ikiryo in under a minute." See the Boss Guide section for this achievement.


Curiosity: Noticed how redrum is murder in backwords? It's a reference to the horror movie "The Shinnig".

"Destroy the Schell Games logo." I've tried a few times to beat the logo but the bombs it drops are just too fast to see and to aggravate things they have an area of effect and I couldn't predict well the logo's patterns so I cheated in this fight. I just kept pressing the start button to see where the bombs would drop.

"Defend Humanity." After defeating the final boss you can earn this by favoring the human race (Did you use more human ships or more aratus ships? Did you bring an aratus or human ship to the final boss?).

"Avenge the Aratus." After defeating the final boss you can earn this by favoring the aratus race (Did you use more human ships or more aratus ships? Did you bring an aratus or human ship to the final boss?).

"Make it through all 8 levels in one session." The videos of the levels should help you with this achievement as you will know what enemies and where they will spawn giving you a leverage.


Note: Unfortunately I'm still having trouble with this achievement as there are some bugs that can prevent you from completing it (the game freezes a few times and other bugs like that). Still, you can get this achievement with enough patience and a bit of luck.

"Get over 10,000,000 points in a single run." See the 1CC achievement and also the Guetting Started section for more info.


Note: You will most likely have to beat the entire game on a single run to make so much points so you will also get the 1CC achievement.

"Reset your game data." Just go to the Options Menu and clear your game data. This option will reset all levels as well as all the extras of the game but it won't reset your number of enemies destroyed or any other counter so don't be afraid if you're concerned about other achievements like the Death Incarnate achievement.